The Book of Ages
by Da2187Luke
Summary: A spirit inhabited statue is unearthed, 20 millenia later a ship escapes out of a closed self sufficient 8 system empire with a shocking tale. What can the twelve best Jedi in the universe do?


20,000 years before Star Wars: A New Hope, in a system located in the area called Wild Space,   
somewhere out and between Ryloth and Alzoc III, an ancient artifact was discovered. It was an old   
statue of a coiled dragon, rather like a disc. A cult was formed around it, proclaiming that a   
spirit inside the statue guided them to great power. They only reason that they became important   
was that the world that they were located on was about to be wiped out by their sun. The cult   
sabotaged the only ship that would carry on their race and replaced its crew with members of their   
only cult. Therefore the only survivors of that system were a few prestigious cult members and the   
statue.   
Instead of heading towards the core of the galaxy, where they would have most likely have been   
destroyed, they headed out into the Wild. They crashed on a non-space-faring planet, and were able   
to convince the natives, with the few bits of technology not destroyed, that they were messengers of   
the gods. During the few hundred years that it took for the planet to gain space travel, the cult   
grew into a world spread religion and the old statue was highly revered and set up in a temple on   
the highest mountain. Unknown to most of the race, the statue was indeed inhabited by a spirit, a   
very ancient spirit, named Shendu. Shendu guided the scientists towards greater technology, and the   
priests to greater influence. Unfortunately for him, one priest became more corrupt than the spirit   
himself and rose through the ranks of priest hood and established himself as a priest king, and   
would not allow anyone else to contact Shendu but him. He then disobeyed Shendu's carefully laid   
out plans, and took the first ship to the nearest planet to declare war, rather than offer the sign   
of peace. The surrounding planets had reached the same level of technology as this planet, and a   
long era of warfare began.  
1,000 years later, the planet of Shendu prevailed, the statue having acted as an icon of terror   
through out the known area. By this time each and every planet had converted and accepted the   
statue worship. The statue was moved to a new planet, the largest one in the conquered area, and   
it's whisperings were law. Then one year, a large teleconference was held throughout all the   
planets, and Shendu spoke to all. Shendu will come to this earthly plane and lead all into   
paradise, but only if twelve talismans were collected and set into the statue. Thus began the long   
period known as the Talisman quests. Each of the twelve talismans represented one of the animals of   
an extremely old form of astrology, the zodiac. The Snake talisman was located on a distant planet   
and held in a jungle temple, where huge numbers of natives protected it for its sacred power of   
invisibility. The planet was eventually conquered and the talisman wrested away. The horse   
talisman was ironically held by a cult of nuns, who claimed to have the power of healing, but   
really only used the talisman to do so. The women were secretly murdered and the talisman claimed. As more and more planets were 'acquired' an old hermit was found all alone with the power of astral projection, the sheep talisman was taken from there. The monkey talisman was a bit trickier, since the news of the Talisman quests reached the far corners of the region, a reign of terror struck everyone. A traveling circus group fled the area a top speed and by the time it was learned that they were using the monkey talisman to shape-shift, they had reached Pzob on the far outer rim. A fleet easily fetched them back, using the power of the snake talisman. Then followed a short series of quests performed by some very religious locals, two brothers tracked down the rooster talisman with its powers of levitation and received full honors. The rabbit and ox talisman, or speed and strength were tracked down by a  
band of friends. A rat talisman was found in an antique shop, the power to re-animate. An old wizard wrestled the pig talisman from a pirate, the power of heat beam eyes. The tiger talisman, the   
power of balance, was found on an abandoned ship, floating in empty region of space. The last   
talisman, the dog talisman was the hardest. It had the power of immortality, and a woman had   
claimed it to be her own.   
It took a special religious sect half a millennia to use the talismans on special permission to   
take the talisman from this immortal queen, who ruled a vast region of space near the Minos Cluster,   
not only with her immortality, but with dark side powers, a deadly combination since the dark side   
could not kill her. But finally, all twelve talismans were collected and the queen's planets fully   
converted. Every planet in the Shendist religion watched holding their breaths on their holoscreens,   
as the last talisman was set in the statue. The statue transformed into a great man dragon, Shendu, the fire demon. Wild riots of fanaticism broke out everywhere in great joy and Shendu spoke to his people. Find the pan-ku box and each and every planet in the galaxy will know complete happiness.  
Unfortunately for Shendu, a line of mages, with some force ability, had foreseen this need for the   
pan-ku box and carefully guarded it. But no mage can withstand the full power of a demon and the   
pan-ku box fell into Shendu's possession. Shendu then announced that he could give the people more   
gods, and they rejoiced. With the strength of every planet backing him, the seven other demon   
portals were tracked down and opened, the empire was split into eight segments and all eight demons   
were released, ready to rule their own private systems. Shendu, the fire demon covered his planet   
with volcanoes. Po Kong, the mountain demon, sculpted her capital planet into the largest series   
of mountain ranges. Xiao Fung, the wind demon, blasted his planet into canyons and rifts. Tchang   
Zu, the thunder demon, flattened his planet into a barren plain and fried the sky into a constant   
electrical storm. Tso Lan, the moon demon, chose the planet with the most moons, and set up base   
on the largest moon and started to bomb the planet into one giant moon. Dai Gui, the earth demon,   
turned his world into a giant desert. His Wu, the sky demon carved his world into large pinnacles   
and spires. And finally, Bai Su, the water demon, sunk every piece of land on her world into the   
sea and flooded the entire planet. Each and every demon was able to get away with this by calling   
it a huge rapid project of specialized industrialization. And suprisingly it was, over time they   
had a huge trade empire shipping every mineral imaginable and built huge factories everywhere. Bai   
Su supplied every world possible with a huge supply of food. Each system grew richer and richer and   
soon the eight of them grew completely self sufficient. They closed the space lanes off and   
remained closed for millennia. Right up to a few years before Star Wars: Attack of the Clones.   
And then someone escaped. 


End file.
